Showcasing Today's Essentials - Esmé Valk

Showcasing Today's Essentials

Installation including a sculpture and the short film Asymmetry is Dynamic SMART Project Space, Amsterdam 2010

Showcasing Today’s Essentials is a spatial installation with moveable parts, choreography and the short film Asymmetry is Dynamic. A long term observation of a home furnishing shop formed the starting point for the works. My re-interpretation of the display in the shop window explores the specific relation between the body, space and the geometry of (constructivist) theatre.

Showcasing Today’s Essentials includes moveable parts that can be put in motion by the visitors. Within this sculptural setting, dancer and choreographer Marie Goeminne performs regularly throughout the duration of the exhibition. The choreography is based on gestures and movements of the window dresser.

Asymmetry is Dynamic is short film focusing on the relationship between the shop window, theater and avant-garde artists through which I question contemporary meaning and use of modernist visual language in the commercial realm. Frederick Kiesler’s book Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display (1930), silk shawls and shop window décor build the ingredients for a personal reflection on the relationship between modernism and commerce.

This project is supported by CBK Rotterdam and Fonds BKVB.

Photos by Lotte Stekelenburg

Asymmetry is Dynamic from Esmé Valk on Vimeo.